I have a dell xps 400 that is stuck in a boot loop.It gives an error message about the floppy drive, which doesnt exist. I have turned off the floppy drive error and it still wont boot. I have removed all non essential parts and tried starting it, still nothing. I have tested the ram and it passed the test. I tried a fresh install of windows xp that didnt work. I placed the hard drive in another computer and it booted just fine. I tried the video card in another computer and it was running perfect. I tried a new power supply, the power supply was a lower wattage than what is required, but i made sure to keep non essential parts out and it still would not get past the windows xp screen. the loading bar will do two runs and right on the second run it restarts. I figure its the motherboard, any ideas? please help.

Tell us some more! Your answer needs to include more details to help people.You can't post answers that contain an email address.Please enter a valid email address.The email address entered is already associated to an account.Login to postPlease use English characters only.

Related Questions:

Ensure that all hard drive and CD/DVD drive cables are properly connected to the system board.
If there is an error message on the screen identifying a problem with a device (such as the floppy drive or hard drive), check the device to make sure it is functioning properly.
If the operating system is attempting to boot from a device (such as the floppy drive or CD/DVD drive); check system setup to ensure the boot sequence is correct for the devices installed on your computer.
If the problem persists, contact Dell (see "Contacting Dell" in your Owner's Manual).

Hi, this error occur when desktop pc's can't detect your floppy drive or floppy boot drive, you can fix it by going to bios setup settings. Just press DEL when you see the DELL LOGO and wait for it to enter bios settings, use ENTER key or ESC key to make changes on the settings, just DISABLE the FLOPPY Drive and change the first boot to HARD Drive where your operating system is located. When changes is done, be sure to save it before exiting. Hope it help, Thanks

Jul 26, 2009 - I have Vista Business system on a Toshiba notebook, latest Service Pack and with allupdates. ... I just booted it up to find the Stage 3 page of a Windows update. ... Have tried using F8 to get last good installation, and to stop auto restart, without success, it just keeps returning to ..

Reboot your system and hit F2 as soon as you see the Dell startup screen (the options are F2 for setup, F12 for boot sequence).

In the System Setup screen, do these steps.

Select Drives:
Make sure your Diskette Drive (3.5 floppy) is set properly (Usually set to Internal)
Make sure that "Drive 0: SATA-0" drive is set to "ON"

Go to "SATA Operation":

Your system proabaly came set to "RAID Autodetect / AHCI" - THIS SETTING CAUSES YOUR SYSTEM TO GO INTO AN IDE LOOP AND DOESN'T ALLOW IT TO FIND YOUR FACTORY INSTALLED SATA DRIVE.

CHANGE THE SATA OPERATION SETTING TO "COMBINATION"

Reboot - make sure that the boot sequence is set to CD rom before HD and make sure that the reinstall CD is in the drive. Setup will load, hit enter to reinstall XP. Your HD should now be detected and you should see the licensing agreement.

If you have your files backed up I reccommend deleting the partition and reformatting prior to installing XP, it will give you that option after the license agreement.

Once you have successfully reinstalled the OS, Dell reccommends that you change the SATA Operation setting back to RAID AUTODETECT / AHCI (or back to whatever your factory setting was) to avoid any problems with other IDE devices installed on your system.
Source Restore Complete but Stuck on DRMK

A boot device stores your operating system (i.e. Windows), and is usually your hard drive, but can be any storage medium such as a floppy, usb flash drive, or even a cd rom. When you turn your computer on, your motherboard looks for your OS on any of the storage devices specified in your bios, in the order specified to look first (Ex. Boot order: 1. CD-Rom, 2. Floppy, 3. Hard Drive, 4. Network). Your Dell is telling you that it can't find Windows on any of these devices. Most likely cause is that your hard drive stopped working, your Windows boot.ini file became corrupted, or you have a USB device plugged into your computer, and it needs to be unplugged before turning on your computer.

Was the original drive also a SATA? If not, then you would need to enter the bios setup and enable the onboard SATA channels. If the bios had gotten defaulted, as from a dead CMOS battery etc. it could have also caused your original SATA drive to be inaccessible.